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Wednesday, November 03, 2010

Pagan miracles

One stock objection which unbelievers level against Biblical miracles is to cite reported miracles outside the sphere of Christianity. For some odd reason, unbelievers seem to think that if Christianity were true, only Christians would experience miracles. Yet that’s a non sequitur.

Let’s take the following episode from Bible history. It is told from the viewpoint of the Jewish narrator. But imagine the event from the receiving end. Imagine seeing the same event through the eyes of the heathen to whom, for whom, and among whom, it occurred. They would rightly report a miracle in their midst. Yet this would in no way conflict with Biblical miracles since the miracle in question is, in fact, a Biblical miracle.

1 Samuel 5

1When the Philistines captured the ark of God, they brought it from Ebenezer to Ashdod. 2Then the Philistines took the ark of God and brought it into the house of Dagon and set it up beside Dagon. 3And when the people of Ashdod rose early the next day, behold, Dagon had fallen face downward on the ground before the ark of the LORD. So they took Dagon and put him back in his place. 4But when they rose early on the next morning, behold, Dagon had fallen face downward on the ground before the ark of the LORD, and the head of Dagon and both his hands were lying cut off on the threshold. Only the trunk of Dagon was left to him. 5This is why the priests of Dagon and all who enter the house of Dagon do not tread on the threshold of Dagon in Ashdod to this day. 6 The hand of the LORD was heavy against the people of Ashdod, and he terrified and afflicted them with tumors, both Ashdod and its territory. 7And when the men of Ashdod saw how things were, they said, "The ark of the God of Israel must not remain with us, for his hand is hard against us and against Dagon our god." 8So they sent and gathered together all the lords of the Philistines and said, "What shall we do with the ark of the God of Israel?" They answered, "Let the ark of the God of Israel be brought around to Gath." So they brought the ark of the God of Israel there. 9But after they had brought it around, the hand of the LORD was against the city, causing a very great panic, and he afflicted the men of the city, both young and old, so that tumors broke out on them. 10So they sent the ark of God to Ekron. But as soon as the ark of God came to Ekron, the people of Ekron cried out, "They have brought around to us the ark of the God of Israel to kill us and our people." 11 They sent therefore and gathered together all the lords of the Philistines and said, "Send away the ark of the God of Israel, and let it return to its own place, that it may not kill us and our people." For there was a deathly panic throughout the whole city. The hand of God was very heavy there. 12The men who did not die were struck with tumors, and the cry of the city went up to heaven.

James: God can surely work supernaturally in our realm if He is pleased to do so. What's to stop Him?

And even the dark spiritual realm where devils live and work havoc can do things in the natural realm. (Only if God allows, that is.)

Job 1st & 2nd chapters: "And the Lord said to Satan, “Behold, all that he has is in your hand. Only against him do not stretch out your hand.” So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord. ....Satan answered the Lord and said, “Skin for skin! All that a man has he will give for his life. But stretch out your hand and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will curse you to your face.” And the Lord said to Satan, “Behold, he is in your hand; only spare his life.”

So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord and struck Job with loathsome sores from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head.

James said: "Are miracles occurring today? If so, are they identifiable as being the work of specifically the Christian God? If so, how?"

If our world view doesn't permit for the existence of a metaphysical lawgiver with authority over physical laws, unexplained natural observations will only ever be chalked up to a lack of scientific knowledge.

In other words there will be an underlying presupposition that the truth of all unexplainable observations can be ultimately arrived at scientifically.

All this to say, our world view prevents us from recognizing miracles.

On the other hand, if our world view allows for a metaphysical lawgiver with authority over physical laws and we 'observe' unexplained behaviors, we have no such presuppositions.

So although something may be completely impossible naturally (such as being raised from the dead), it may not be impossible or inconceivable supra-naturally. Such events will absolutely be evidence of miracles.

You ask, are they happening today?

So how can anyone answer this question if you presuppose that all events MUST have a naturalistic explanation but are willing to all situations with no apparent explanation as merely a lack of evidence?

ἐκκλησία: So what would you consider a modern-day miracle that you have witnessed and/or heard about through others?

What are the parameters that separate the miraculous from something that is simply uncanny or unexplainable?

Some consider the process of human conception and birth to be miraculous. Maybe it is. I'm not sure it would qualify as such if compared against the types of miracles in Scripture (the multiplying of the loaves and fishes, the parting of the Red Sea, etc.)

"If our world view doesn't permit for the existence of a metaphysical lawgiver with authority over physical laws, unexplained natural observations will only ever be chalked up to a lack of scientific knowledge.In other words there will be an underlying presupposition that the truth of all unexplainable observations can be ultimately arrived at scientifically.If this is true, by Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem science is self contradictory.All this to say, our world view prevents us from recognizing miracles."

Beautiful, never heard it put quite that well before. As an aside, I've recently been contemplating Godel's Incompleteness Theorem. Any axiomatic system (logic, science, mathematics) will always have one or more axioms that are 'not' self-evident, and thus must be taken on faith.

Is that an accurate representation of Godel? Reminds me of the words of St. Augustine, 'Understanding is the reward of faith, therefore, do not seek to understand in order to believe, but believe that thou mayest understand.

Faith then becomes the foundation for knowledge and understanding rather than the superstructure built up from underlying rational prowess.

I'm sure we could think of others: Michael Polanyi comes to mind. He said: Science can never be more certain than it's underlying set of beliefs.

No. I try to restrict my travels to areas where full body armor is not required.

"Not dying, when by all other accounts, one should have."

I don't know the details, but would you put that in the same category as the types of miracles that occurred in the Bible (the feeding of the multitudes, the raising of the dead, the parting of the Red Sea)? I don't expect you to define exactly HOW they're different, but the order of magnitude certainly is different, wouldn't you agree?

James said: "No. I try to restrict my travels to areas where full body armor is not required."

Wise.

James said: "I don't know the details, but would you put that in the same category as the types of miracles that occurred in the Bible (the feeding of the multitudes, the raising of the dead, the parting of the Red Sea)?"

This is conjecture, so don't hold other Christian's accountable for my comments. I don't think theologically about miracles all that often.

I believe that Jesus performed miracles in a category all His own, while he lived.

Although parting the Red Sea seems fantastic, God could have arranged it such that natural processes were at work to facilitate the miracle. The same is true of extra long days, walls falling down, etc. (Nothing specifically suggests that for miracles to occur, natural process need to be so completely altered so as to be unrecognizable.) There could possibly be exceptions.

Yet, IMHO, the miracles Jesus performed seem to be in a class on their own. (walking on water, turning water to wine, multiply food-stuffs, and directing the wind and waves all seem completely supra-natural and unique)

Further conjecture: For miracles performed by prophets, often we see that God first commands the miracle. Then it occurs, which is to say God intervenes in nature in a way we don't fully understand. It could be as simply as issuing a command for nature to react, yet continue to function in a consistent way so the miracle 'occurs'. (This could be seen as God simply intervening in nature)

On the other hand, if Jesus IS God, (and I believe He is), nature need not simply obey Him for a miracle to occur, but nature might also 'react' to the mere presence of a timeless God in time; creation reacting to His mere presence as creator; a stream reacting to a rock firmly embedded in its path.

There is conceivably other pathways by which miracles occur in the presence of God.

This ends my conjecture.

James said: "Do those types of things occur today?"

I personally believe miracles still occur, but I also believe our skeptical arrogant minds generally fail to witness or even recognize them as anything other than instances of naturalistic chance, or unexplained / poorly understood processes.

This isn't unreasonable, as observations of the sub-atomic level (quantum level) constantly produces surprising, unexpected results which we chalk up to probabilistic behavior.

This view of probability is really a way of hedging bets since when events really don't act according to our normalized probability curves, we simply say we have witnessed an extremely unlikely event - and leave it at that.

Steve Drake said: "Any axiomatic system (logic, science, mathematics) will always have one or more axioms that are 'not' self-evident, and thus must be taken on faith.

Is that an accurate representation of Godel?"

It is an accurate consequence of Godel's theorem being true.

What he proved was no axiomatic system could be both complete and consistent; which implies they must be one or the other, not both.

The consequence is that there exists un-provable truths relative to the axiomatic system in question.

That means science, if consistent, cannot prove all (observable) things. If it could prove all (observable) things, it MUST be inconsistent.

The same is true of knowledge (knowledge being fundamentally axiomatic in nature), so there are unknowable things; same with logic; same with mathematics; etc.

So if all observable events, including apparent miracles, are scientifically provable, and science is an axiomatic system based upon observability, than science, according to Godel's theorem, must be inconsistent (self-contradictory).

Conversely, if science is axiomatic observability and consistent, not all observable events can be proven. Godel's theorem, in a sense, suggests miracles.

Ekkhahsia, (Not sure how to spell this using the English alphabet, my apologies).

So by extension, science can never understand nature in terms of nature. Scientific knowledge, or any knowledge whatsover, cannot be self-referencing.

The Christian system, by contrast, posits that God exists outside of the universe He created, and therefore since He is the self-authenticating, authoritative, only infinite One, can speak into our world with knowledge that only He has, to tell us about his character, His creative acts, what He expects from us, and how we should live.

Does Godel's Incompleteness Theorem disprove a God outside the system with the ability and capacity to thus so speak?

Got it now,Epsilon, kappa, kappa, lambda, eta, sigma, iota, alpha. Sorry about my earlier confusion. Ekklesia might be a better English spelling for those of us technologically challenged to spell it in Greek?

If it's true, it cannot be proven true.If it can be proven true, it is self-refuting.

Because this logic statement exists, it is either included within the system of logic on faith (without proof), or the logical system itself must necessarily include at least one self contradiction (being this statement itself).

Logic is therefore either consistent or incomplete, not both.

Can you see how Gödel's theorem suggests miracles then (in science)?

(WRT to ἐκκλησία, it can be expressed in our Latin alphabet as ekklēsia.)